Are you running applications in the cloud? Are you utilizing public or
private cloud infrastructure services from cloud providers such as
Amazon AWS, Azure or Rackspace? If so, you
need to ensure the performance, availability, and reachability
of those services no differently than you would your on-premises equivalents.
SolarWinds provides agentless application and server monitoring for on-premises
environments,
as well as an optional Windows agent for monitoring servers and applications
located in the cloud. The agent can also be utilized for monitoring servers in
your DMZ,
in addition to satellite, remote, and branch offices
located anywhere on the globe. A feat that would otherwise be difficult or
impossible
using agentless technologies due to firewall issues, network bandwidth,
latency,
or security concerns. Regardless of where your infrastructure is located,
you'll be able to monitor your servers and applications across your hybrid
cloud infrastructure
all in a single pane of glass. The agent provides two user selectable methods of
communication to the Orion server
Agent Initiated Mode and Server Initiated mode.
Each agent can be configured independently to operate in the mode that best
suits your needs.
For example, you may want to use Server Initiated mode for servers hosted
on Amazon EC2 because they have publicly routable IP addresses.
Conversely, you may want to use Agent Initiated mode
for servers you're hosting in Azure because those servers are using private
address space behind a NAT. With the agent installed on the remote Windows
host,
you can perform essentially all of the same node and application monitoring
functional
you normally would for agentless hosts in your own environment,
across what would otherwise be disconnected networks.
In Agent Initiated Mode, all communications are initiated from the server where the
agent is installed.
No direct route from the Orion server or additional poller to the monitored host is
required.
No port forwarding needs to be configured at the remote site,
nor do you need a pool of public routable IP addresses
at each remote site for one-to-one address translation.
In Server Initiated Mode, the agent operates over a single port similar to
Agent Initiated mode. The difference in Server Initiated mode
is that the Orion server polls information from the agent in a similar
fashion
to SNMP or RPC. Zero ports need to be opened inbound to the internal network from the
DMZ,
and all communication is done across a single port. In either method of
communication,
the agent is very secure and fully encrypted utilizing
FIPS compatible 2048 bit TLS encryption
to ensure all communication between the Agent and the Orion Poller
are safe from would-be cybercriminals. There are several ways to
deploy the agent.
Two of the most common methods for monitoring apps in the public cloud
infrastructure
include deploying the agent manually or embedding the agent as part of your
public cloud server image.
For a comprehensive list of agent deployment options,
please see the Administrator guide. To deploy the agent manually,
you simply download the agent installer from the Orion web interface.
To do this, you go to Settings,
Agent Settings and then Download the Agent Software.
In the Manual Installer column, click to download the
.MSI file on the source machine.
After download is complete, copy the .MSI file to the host you wish to monitor.
Install by simply double clicking on the MSI.
Enter the Orion server IP address or the Fully Qualified Domain Name
and your Orion admin user account credentials.
You'll be able to see that the installation was successful
by viewing the newly added agent from the Manage Agents page
in the Orion web interface. The benefit of bundling the agent as part of your
Amazon EC2,
Azure or other public cloud server image, is that the agent will be deployed
automatically
as you provision a new server. Check your cloud provider's documentation
on how to customize server images. For instance, to customize your Windows EC2
instance, you would follow these instructions.
If you happen to be hosting servers on Azure,
you can leverage Web Deploy to distribute the Agent to those servers.
Once the agent is deployed, you can begin monitoring the applications running on
those instances
the same as you would for agentlessly monitored hosts running in your own
environment.
Once installed, managing the agent is easy. Simply go to Settings,
manage agent, select the agent you wish to modify
and click "Edit Settings".
From here you can modify the communication method,
as well as set the agent to automatically update as new product versions
are released. To learn more about the features of Server & Application Monitor,
obtain a free 30-day trial or access product documentation on this and other
features,
please go to www.solarwinds.com